Rice (1-6, 0-3 American) at Florida Atlantic (4-2, 1-1 American). Saturday, Oct. 24, noon ET, Howard Schnellenberger Field at Flagler Credit Union Stadium, Boca Raton, Fla., ESPNU.
Your hosts are Kaia Brightwater, a former Boca beach volleyball player who gives surf reports for offenses, and Odalys Chen-Moreau, a Rice bioengineering Ph.D. student and self-described stats cop.
Kaia: Hey, fellow Owl! Surf's up on tempo, babe.
Odalys: Lovely to meet you, Kaia. Our sample size together is small, so let's call this a pilot study.
Players to watch
FAU throws for 307.3 yards per game. Quarterback Caden Veltkamp has 1,743 yards and 15 touchdowns. Wide receiver Kelby Valsin has 47 catches for 601 yards and six scores. Linebacker Joseph Sipp Jr. leads with 41 tackles and has a sack. The Owls are 3-0 at home and have outscored visitors 120-50 there.
Rice runs on about 79% of its plays and gains 4.87 yards per carry. Quarterback Jacurri Brown leads the team with 668 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns, plus 471 passing yards. Running back Tyvonn Byars has 372 yards. Defensive end A.J. Brown leads with 52 tackles.
Odalys: Seventy-nine percent runs. That's not a small sample. That's an identity.
What happened last week
Both teams lost. FAU fell 56-24 at Army. Veltkamp still went 33 of 48 for 318 yards and three touchdowns, and Valsin caught seven passes for 89 yards and a score. Rice lost 38-17 at home to Tulsa. Jacurri Brown ran 11 times for 154 yards and two touchdowns.
Kaia: Army was a closeout wave, and we were on the wrong end of it. Choppy water, babe. Moving on.
Injuries and availability
No official conference availability report has been published for this game. No injury news has surfaced for either team, so check back closer to kickoff.
What the coaches are up to
Zach Kittley was named FAU's Hagerty Family Head Football Coach on Dec. 2, 2024. His offense averages 35.0 points per game, but his defense allows 5.43 yards per carry. That matters this week, a week after Army ran all over the Owls.
Scott Abell was named Rice's head coach on Nov. 26, 2024, after seven seasons at Davidson. Several Rice losses have been close, including 16-14 to UTSA and 28-21 to Western Michigan. The variable to fix is ball security: Rice has lost 10 turnovers and forced four.
Player storylines
Jacurri Brown against an FAU run defense allowing 5.43 yards per carry is the matchup Odalys has circled. Kaia's is Veltkamp and Valsin against a Rice pass defense allowing 188.7 yards per game, if the weather cooperates. The forecast called for 81 degrees, a 52% chance of rain and a 20 mph northeast wind.
Odalys: Wind affects passing more than running. That's not my opinion. That's physics.
Kaia: Babe, I play volleyball on the beach. I know wind.
What's happening on campus
It's Homecoming in Boca Raton. FAU will celebrate with a Celebration of Champions and Youth Sports Day, and alumni are coming home. There's a Homecoming Unity Tailgate in Lot 5, and the Homecoming Court will be crowned during the game. FAU's promotion also mentions a Varsity Owls tailgate and youth sports teams from across the tri-county area.
Anything else fun and true
The series is tied 3-3, and this is the seventh meeting. Five of the six games were decided by six or fewer points. FAU won last year's meeting in Houston. FAU's field is named for Howard Schnellenberger, who founded the program and was its first head coach. And Rice Stadium has history: President Kennedy gave his "We choose to go to the moon" speech there on Sept. 12, 1962, and it hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974.
Odalys: N equals six meetings. Still too small to call a trend. But it's a fun dataset, and five of six within a touchdown is a very caffeinated dataset.
Kaia: Surf's up, Owls. Both kinds.
The Cover Window
My call: Florida Atlantic Owls 33, Rice Owls 24.